Bar Harbor, Maine—Ron Korstanje, Ph.D., a Jackson Laboratory researcher specializing in kidney disease, has been promoted to assistant professor.
The Dutch-born Korstanje completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry at HZ University of Applied Science, in Vlissingen, in 1994. He earned an M.Sc. in molecular biology in 1996 at Leiden University, followed by graduate school for a Ph.D. in molecular genetics at Utrecht University, awarded in 2000. He first came to The Jackson Laboratory in 2001 for a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Professor Beverly Paigen, Ph.D.
Korstanje’s work earned him the notice of colleagues at the University of Groningen, and he was recruited “back home” in 2004, as a research associate in the medical biology division. Within two years, Korstanje advanced to the rank of assistant professor. But he returned to JAX in 2007 as a research scientist in Paigen’s laboratory, advancing to senior research scientist in 2011.
“Ron’s productivity, with his own NIH funding, has been remarkable,” says JAX Vice President for Research Robert Braun, Ph.D. “He has published more than 20 papers, 13 as senior author, within five years. The focus of his research is an elegant combination of studies in aging, metabolism, and genomics as they relate to kidney disease. His program has expanded to use zebrafish and C. elegans as well as mice.”
Korstanje is an active collaborator with faculty in the Laboratory’s NIH-funded Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging and Center for Genome Dynamics. He has been committed to mentoring undergraduate, predoctoral, and postdoctoral trainees, has volunteered to serve on internal institutional committees, and is a co-organizer of the Laboratory’s annual conference on heart, lung and blood disorders.
“Ron is another example of exceptional alumni from JAX’s Training Program,” Braun says. “We are very pleased that he has chosen to advance his career with us and we look forward to his contributions to the growth and success of JAX’s expansion in translational research in Bar Harbor and Connecticut.”
The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a new genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It employs a total staff of more than 1,500. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.